


All The Sweeter

by OpalEmpress



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Growing Up Sith, Sith family, The Starbinder Legacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22313053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalEmpress/pseuds/OpalEmpress
Relationships: Andronikos Revel/Female Sith Inquisitor, mentioned but not focused
Kudos: 4





	All The Sweeter

She is born on Ziost, in the stronghold of her mother. Her sister was born among the stars, three year earlier, but now, time has passed, and her parents have built a home on solid ground for them. Her eyes are the same color as her father’s. He laughs heartily when he sees them, and teasingly tells her mother, “Well, this one will be like me, then!” Her mother rolls her eyes but smiles indulgently at her husband as she brushes her first daughter’s hair.

She is three when her sister yanks a toy out of her hand from across the room, her face dark with an anger rarely seen on a child’s face. She cries and her mother, leaning over a dusty engraved slab on a desk, barely spares her a glance, saying, “If you want it, Neikke, take it back.” But when she tries, her sister pushes her down and sticks out her tongue at her.

She is five and has been sent to her room without dinner for breaking a pot in her mother’s office. Apparently, it was a very important pot. She pouts in her bed, back to the wall, until the door slides open, and her sister comes in, and offers her one of two small Kaasi cakes, chocolate covered and too decadent for children, with a grin that shows off her two missing teeth. “Don’t tell Mother, okay, Neikke?” She giggles and accepts, the chocolate smearing on her fingers, and tasting all the better for being stolen.

She is seven when she successfully fixes a part of a ship for the first time. Her father spins her around, laughing and she laughs, too. “One day, you’ll fly just as crazy as I do, princess. You see, Persefeni? Neikke’s got the right idea!” Her sister, eyes brimming with tears she’s too proud to cry, throws the wrench down and stalks out of the hangar, head held high, but fists clenched. Both children are quiet at dinner, even as their parents chatter away.

She is nine, and she follows her sister through the kitchens, sneaking behind the backs of the staff and servants to where the treats are stored—the good ones, even a few smuggled in from Republic controlled worlds. She stifles a giggle as her sister uses the Force to lift the locked case down from the shelf and passes it to her. “You’re better at picking the lock,” she says, peeking around the corner, “But if there’s only one Kaasi cake left, I call it.”

She is ten when her sister and she spar for the first time. Her sister is a natural fighter—the blade is part of her. But Neikke can’t find her footing to save her life, and over and over and over, she falls. She sees a flicker of pity in her sister’s eyes after the tenth time, but she knocks away the outstretched hand when it’s offered, eyes prickling and muscles on fire. “Fine, then.” Persefeni’s voice is angry, but she hasn’t mastered the coldness with which their mother can speak. Neikke falls another fifteen times to her sister that day, but is never offered a hand up again.

She is eleven, and has just returned to the hanger, having “borrowed” a shuttle for a joyride. She knows she’s too young to fly anything, but she loves it too much to give it up. She expects to find her father waiting for her, to grouch at her and criticize her landing, but instead, her mother is there, hands folded patiently in her lap, eyes glowing crimson in the dim light of the hanger bay. She thinks about running, but instead, she bows her head and apologizes. Her mother laughs and says, “You have too much of that lunk-headed pirate in you. But don’t do it again, dear. If you were to crash in the jungles, who would your sister steal my Kaasi cakes with?” She thinks it might be the first time she has seen her mother smile with any warmth.

She is thirteen, sitting by the medbay bed where her sister lies unconscious, knocked out cold from her mother’s lightening bolt. She hears her parent’s voices from outside the door—she thinks her mother’s voice might be tinged with regret, but her father seems to reassure her. “It’s not like you got where you are with hugs and kisses, Sith. Tough love—just maybe not so tough next time, eh?” Her sister stirs, but her eyes don’t open, and her fingers still feel limp in her hand. She places two Kaasi cakes, wrapped to make sure the chocolate doesn’t smear, on the table next to her sister’s head. For when she wakes up, Neikke thinks.

She is fourteen, and she is lonely. Her mother is studying artifacts on the other side of the world with one of her Dark Council associates and has been for weeks now. Her father is off connecting with underworld contacts at the local cantina, playing hands of sabacc and drinking. Her sister spends all her time on the training grounds or meditating. She thinks sometimes that she should interrupt her, distract her with a ridiculous plot or gossip or a game of pazaak, but she’s honestly not sure her sister wants to spend time with her anymore. She doesn’t seem to want to spend time with anyone. “I guess it’s just you and me,” she says fondly to the Corellian freighter their father had gifted to her after he stole in one of his impulsive forays into Republic space as she reattaches a panel under the pilot’s seat.

She is fifteen, watching her sister leap across the training arena, knocking opponents to their knees one after the other. She has gotten better in the two years that have passed, so much better, but her face is harder now, and her blows are, too. Neikke’s shoulders droop as she watches. She feels a hollow sort of jealousy in her chest, and she looks at the blaster she has started to carry with her in disappointment. But, as her sister bows at the waist in front of their mother, and the Darth says, without looking up from the datapad she is studying, “You missed four points of attack and the chance to strike a killing blow,” she thinks not being Force-sensitive is perhaps the easier hand to be dealt.

She is sixteen, rain pounding down outside of the apartment the family inhabits when they’re in Kaas City. She is snooping through her sister’s things, hoping to find a diary or a love letter from some noble—she knows she shouldn’t, but she’s bored, and she likes a little danger. It’s as she turns over a holocron that she knows is stolen from her mother’s library that she hears her sister’s footsteps. She’s caught, and she turns to make a joke, like she’s done before. But she sees the blood on her sister’s shoulder, from where she hit the ground going up against the impossible again, and the rage on her face when Persefeni realizes what’s in her hands. And the next thing she knows, her throat has no air in it, her feet aren’t on the ground, and her head slams against the glass behind her. Her sister is in front of her, eyes glowing gold and it’s only as her world disappears into blackness that the pressure around her neck vanishes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she hears her sister say frantically, eyes blue again.

She is seventeen, staring at herself in the mirror. The cybernetics had repaired her skull, and her mother had been able to afford the very best upgrades, which meant targeting systems, slicing programs, schematic uploads, everything she could ever want. “Only the absolute best will do,” Nox had snarled at the doctors, bearing down on them in the hospital as only a Darth can. But the scars around her neck will never disappear. She refuses to see her sister when she returns home, only venturing out of her room when she knows her sister is being tested. If she was like Persefeni, she thinks, she would have an outlet for the rage she feels. She doesn’t let herself think about the regret she thinks she heard. She’s pretty sure she dreamed it anyway—her sister is destined to be Sith, and Sith don’t regret anything. 

She is eighteen, and it is the middle of the night. She has stolen her father’s blaster—the same crime that led him to her mother, to hear him tell it—and her mother’s Dark Council access codes to leave Ziost airspace. She pads silently past her sister’s room and can’t resist glancing inside. Persefeni is sitting in the nook beside her window, watching the rain drizzle down in the light of the moons, knees tucked up under her chin and hair falling around her shoulders. It’s the first time Neikke has seen her sister look even slightly peaceful in four years. She thinks about saying goodbye, but then she feels the cold metal fused in her cheek, and scoffs. “Good riddance,” she whispers in the dark, and then continues to the hanger, where her ship is waiting. It’s only when she is open space, when perfect freedom makes it impossible for her to stop smiling as she plugs in the coordinates to Tatooine (the goods from Ziost in her hold will sell at a premium there) that she sees the wrapped packages on the navigator’s seat, and recognizes her sister’s handwriting on the tag that bears her name, and a short message. She almost pitches it from the airlock (a fresh start, she had told her ship as she outfitted it) but she’s too curious not to see what’s inside first and opens it with slightly trembling fingers. She swallows, smile fading, as she picks up the single Kaasi cake inside it, then shakes her head to stop herself from thinking too much. Her smile returns, if a bit forced, and as she takes a determined bite, chocolate smearing over her fingers, she makes the jump to hyperspace.


End file.
